Frank Porcelli

Lecturer on Law

Biography

Frank Porcelli is a principal at Fish & Richardson in Boston. He has been with the firm for 40 years, since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1971. He specializes in pharmabio patent litigation and patent appellate practice, and co-chairs the firm's Appellate Practice Group. From 1999-2001, Frank was Visiting Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Harvard Law School, where he taught Patent Law. For the last ten years he has taught Pharma and Bio Litigation in an annual continuing legal education program. Frank was lead trial counsel for the winning side in what stood for 25 years as the largest district court patent damages case ever upheld by the Federal Circuit, 3M v. Johnson & Johnson. The award in this case, which involved orthopedic casts, was $129 million, and the case was featured in articles in Time and Business Week. Frank successfully argued the en banc Federal Circuit appeal in Johnson & Johnston v. R.E. Service, which confirmed the doctrine of dedication as a limitation on the doctrine of equivalents in 2002. He has been lead trial counsel in patent case victories involving a variety of technologies including propane torches, Post-it brand notes, pacemakers and defibrillators, and catalysts for making 2-3-dihydrofuran. He has presented oral argument in patent appeal victories covering an equally broad range of subject matter, including microwave combination ranges, dental endoscopes, knee implants, in-line skates, bovine teat dip, printed circuit boards, ultrapasteurized liquid eggs, hypodermic needle guards, and coronary stents. Recently, Frank was named to Intellectual Asset Management's (IAM's) The World's Leading Patent Litigators (2011) and to IAM's Top 20 Federal Circuit Appellate Advocates (2011). In 2012 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the American Inns of Court as First Circuit Trustee. Frank holds an undergraduate degree in English Literature from Boston College, and a Master's in Chemistry from Northeastern University.